Call to Action This Week: Tell the Pima Community College Board Members and the Marana Unified School District Board Members to Say No to Monsanto!

After Monsanto dropped its bid to get a tax break from Pima County, a quartet of women—Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt and GMO Free Arizona co-founder Rachel Linden along with farmer Anne Loftfield and Going Against GMOs author Melissa Diane Smith—held several successful events: a Stand Up Against Monsanto Public Forum on February 19 and a Rally and Press Conference before a dozen or so powerful statements were made at the Board of Supervisors meeting on February 21. Supervisor Richard Elias, who has spoken out against Monsanto since the beginning, also spoke at the rally. You can see some of the coverage of these events at the following links:

Although Monsanto dropped the payment in lieu of taxes (tax break) proposal, it is still expected to apply for a foreign trade zone status. Receiving foreign trade zone status would give Monsanto advantages we do not want it to have, so we need to generate massive public input against Monsanto’s application being approved. We will reveal more details about how to oppose as soon as Monsanto files its application.

We have two big Calls to Action this week—not to the Board of Supervisors, but to governing boards of two educational institutions in Pima County. The Pima County supervisors’ involvement in Monsanto’s foreign trade zone application is off the table now, but both the Pima Community College Governing Board and the Marana Unified School District are still considering options having to do with Monsanto. That means we need to write these board members or speak to them in person at their board meetings this week.